


Mortal Defiance

by Japilligus



Series: The Annals of Acra [1]
Category: No Fandom
Genre: Acra, Gen, Haedri, Haelmar
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-07
Updated: 2013-04-07
Packaged: 2017-12-07 17:32:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/751160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Japilligus/pseuds/Japilligus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If you went to Acra ten years ago, you would have found a surprisingly peaceful realm despite the warlike people that occupy it. The god hero, Haelmar, had his divine hold over the clanlords, each of which was obedient to his power. Like never before had the Acrans experienced such wealth and prosper. Trade from all the nations of the world was coming in and Acra was being recognised as a civilised power.<br/>However, Acrans do not tolerate peace very well.<br/>It was only a matter of time.<br/>Ten years, in fact.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mortal Defiance

3rd Cycle of Life, Year 1143

 

The last time Haedri had visited the streets of Vahlen he had been but a young warrior with a wooden sword and a tendency to cry whenever he knocked his head into something more robust than himself, which happened to include, back then, tables, chairs and the hooves of the nastiest horse in Slastjol. That was over twenty years ago, when his father had come to pledge allegiance to the almighty one. His father had brought him along to show the glory of the god hero that was Haelmar, so that he might understand why the wise bent the knee rather than raise the hammer to this all powerful being.  
Haedri remembered how in awe of the magnificent city he had been. It was crafted in stone! Indestructible, age-enduring stone! He had never seen so many monoliths of invincibility in his whole life, rising from the ground as if they had been crafted by stone gods themselves. The simplest hovel of poor grade stone looked a fortress in his young eyes, and a fortress simply took his breath away, almost literally. The whole wonder that was the amazing city had him feeling giddy, and he only had past the first walls.   
Now as he was passing those very same walls, he still had that feeling and he smiled to himself.   
Looking up at the crenulations behind him he could he see his work. As a child he had been attracted by the soldiers patrolling the walltops, their rhythmic marching hinting to the merciless discipline it was told the Guard of Vahlen undertook. Their halberds were tall and looked as sharp as his father’s razor. He took all of it in, as a child does, with eager eyes.   
His father had said to him when he caught Haedri gazing at the armed men, “See, Haedri, discipline, that’s what we need more of.” Even as a child he saw the sense in that.   
He remembered the tales that came from travellers but they did little justice to what he saw. They never described the stout towers, the glowing writing that lined the walls and gates, the people and the noise. It wasn’t a loud noise, just the murmur of voices, movement, birds, and animals, carts and hammer, combined into one clamour that acted as the backdrop to everything else. They also never described the water that coursed about the city between and under houses, then out under the walls, flowing as fast as the waters of the ocean, the roar adding to the din, and how the children played in it and the people washed their clothes in it.  
What came next simply was not beaten in splendour until this very day he returned. As they passed through the second gate and the second wall of solid granite, just as he was at this very moment, he saw before him the Terrace of Thunder.   
Aptly named as he had discovered when the almighty noise reached him that day.  
The street, wide enough for a hundred men to casually walk side by side, was lined with so many stalls and carts of goods spilling from them, with men from all over the world that young Haedri did not know where to look first. And at the end of it all, far in the distance where the stalls and shops were replaced by statues and pools, stood the Grand Hjem Palace. The gold that trimmed the edges of the magnificent structure glinted in the sunlight that just so happened to struggle through the clouds.  
If a god hero had to have a home, that was it, thought Haedri as the young boy he was.  
While Haedri was as fiercely independent as any boy of ten thought he was, he reluctantly let his father take his hand as they had entered the crowds of buyers and sellers and all the other people in between.   
More people than he thought existed in all of Acra were rushing about the market shouting at each other over different wares and deals. He saw the tanned merchants of Indehopai with their finely combed beards of black hair, selling the fanciful clothing and fruits of the new empire of the south. Amongst them he saw a few individuals sparsely garbed in cream coloured robes, or they could have simply been uniformly dirty white ones, who seemed to be avidly in discussion with each other. From the Five Islands were many traders and merchant lords overdressed in their furs and skins as if the crisp autumn morning was a snowstorm in the Fornord. They had the strange hats that curled to a point that Five Islanders were famous for sporting.  
There were of course local sellers; fishmongers of the Haelflyt and greater seas, apprentices of smiths selling all manner of crafted wares from hastily-linked chainmail to swords of fine craftsmanship, farmers stood by stalls laden with harvest and bakers trundled about with small carts shouting their prices. There were more and more things to see but the boy’s gaze was quickly attracted to a great stage that had been erected, surrounded by people.  
Haedri had heard of this even as a child of an isolated village. It was a kind of ownership over people that could be bought and sold like meat or clothes and people used them as they wanted. He could not understand how people could live like that nor could he understand how people could want such a person in service, so easily could these slaves change heart. It was a foreign thing, and even now as a man of almost thirty did he still disdain it.  
He quickly looked away and was glad his father did not look in their direction. Many warlords and rich houses were purchasing slaves in the droves to do everything, putting locals out of work and themselves getting fat surrounded by people they shouldn’t trust. At least, that’s what his father said, but like any son, he found himself agreeing.  
Haedri’s father, Doryk, was once a strong man who had won many battles and established the Slastjol clan as a powerful presence in his own father’s name, Haedri’s grandfather, Gamleik. Doryk then took to running the town and taking over the matters of the clan while old Gamleik began to lose his wits and was soon forgetting his friends and family. Haedri’s memory of his grandfather was of a man that always liked to tell tales of adventures with people he had never heard of as if they happened yesterday. Haedri’s mother said they were people from his childhood and he was forgetting the people from his present.  
Then when Haedri was six his grandfather almost burned down the longhall when he lit candles in every room and forgot about them. They had to have grandfather looked after all the time and Haedri’s father took the responsibility not only of the town on his shoulders, but of his own declining father who still technically was the ruler of Slastjol and made a great show at events by asking everyone if they had seen his long dead dog. Haedri’s father just let it go but Haedri could see how the guests always sneered and scoffed at the funny, old lord Slastjol. All the respect his father had won was being blown away by an old man’s farts.  
Such thoughts brought Haedri’s mind back to the those moments in the market as a child where the assault on his nostrils from the cattle and horses was more than he was used to. Slastjol was too far north for large herds of animals and most of them were goats, as well as a few cows and horses. Haedri rarely found himself surrounded by so many at once, and many other beasts. There were all kinds of horses, the lean and spirited to the durable and hardy and covered in long hair. But there were also strange horses that had shorter legs but much longer necks and a shaggy coat of hair. Other peculiar horses had curved, long necks with huge humps in their back. There were birds that spoke human tongue while sporting a bright coat of feathers; one that even seemed to only utter curses which made Haedri laugh and his father scowl.   
This was all in the space of less than a hundred metres with roads spreading off the Terrace of Thunder and yet more stalls and markets and the distant smells of foods and spices drifted past. This made an unusual mix with the stench of animals.  
Haedri’s father had brought six of his best warriors with him to show the strength of their kin but not so much to attempt to be intimidating or show aggression. This Haedri had understood. Everyone had treated Haedri like any of the other children that ran around the village but he got more than they knew which was good otherwise they wouldn’t talk of such things near him. He had understood the basics of politics and warfare. He had known how a man could die, and he had also gotten the naughty jokes men made to each other when women like his mother. Well, most of them.  
Over the course of his life, he had learnt much more, but what he had learnt that day proved to be the most valuable. Even now, he was glad he had convinced his father to take him to the luxurious city of Vahlen. Had his father declined, everything would have been different.  
Now, twenty years later the streets were still crowded, although a different sort of crowd occupied the space. Back as a child however, the people parted as the impressive warriors of the Slastjol clan made their way through the throng. They knew what his father came to do and it was for that same reason that Haedri was again in the city.  
Whenever a new clanlord established himself within one clan or another, they would have to make their way to the capital within the month to pay homage to the god hero and self-proclaimed king, Haelmar the Uniter. If they did not, it was then assumed that the clan was at war with the Truce of Vahlen and swift and terrible justice would be dealt; a good excuse for battle, which the people of Acra, for which they were both famed and scorned, relished.   
With the sudden yet not unexpected death of Haedri’s grandfather, it now became Doryk’s responsibility to choose whether the clan lived under thrall or died free. It was not much that the god hero asked for to be part of the Truce. Merely that each clan was loyal and ready to be called to arms in defence of the Truce.   
That part Haedri found acceptable, it was a good thing that a people can put aside their differences in defence of a nation. It even put the warlike manner of the Acrans to a better use against common enemies, each clan attempting to prove themselves more than the other in battle.   
What Haedri found unacceptable, especially as a child in the Grand Hjem with his father, were the other terms he asked of the clans. It was the reason many clans initially refused his claim to rule. And rightly.  
It was demanded that not only all Trueborn to be born to any of the clans be given to Haelmar, but also a child from every family within the clan, to not only ensure loyalty, but to create an ultimate force trained by the god hero himself. Haelmar claimed it was for not only his protection but the protection of the Truce, as they were his personal dealers in justice.  
When the god hero stood on sand apparently sourced from the bones of his enemies he had crushed, he said these things in his booming yet calming voice. Haedri had stood upon the stone steps leading up to it and watched as his father had bent his knee before him. The young boy had expected to feel proud at that moment, now that his father was head of the clan, but the sight of his father in the shadow of that… god hero, Haelmar the Ultimate, seemed to diminish all that his father was.  
Doryk had once been a massive man himself, wielding a hammer in each hand with bucklers strapped to both arms, he was nigh unstoppable in the field. Slastjol went from being a small, unheard of town known only for its hardy goats and horses to one that boasted the fiercest warriors in all of Acra.   
But still famous for its goats.  
That was many years ago, however, and now all the responsibilities Doryk had taken on since becoming the clanlord in everything but name had reduced the powerful warrior of a father that Haedri had been proud of to a bent-backed man with sagging skin and tired, old eyes. Even though Haedri’s grandfather had been a burden, his death had taken a toll on the new leader. When he had kneeled before the god hero, he did so as if he was surrendering his life and breathing his last breath. He remember how disappointed and angry the young Haedri had been. Everything wasn’t how he had planned. He had thought he done everything right. Saved the clan and saved his father. But he was only a child, and he should have known better.  
Now, Haedri liked to think he did. He knew he did. He was saving not only his clan, but all clans. All Acrans. It had to be done, otherwise his people wouldn’t be free and the storm that was coming from the south, where kings and overlords were falling to this empire, would destroy them, too. He needed his people to be ready. He knew what would happen when it came to Acra. He knew their god hero would join them, like all were doing and he knew that his people would not only be subject to Haelmar’s will, but the will of this empire.   
He had heard suspicious things of this empire; that they worshipped a woman much like Haelmar in the way that she lived long with inhuman strength and stamina, a Trueborn. They worshipped her not for her might or deeds however, but for her request for peace. A call for the kingdoms and countries to lay down its arms together and unite to better the civilized societies of the world, and already many had joined her.  
Spit on that, thought Haedri. He knew what peace brought. It brought about restlessness, where a man has nothing to do he can turn to dark and terrible things. Things worse than war and battle. Battle might be horrific, but it was also glorious, otherwise poets would never sing of it. Peace was a veil that cast a shadow. It hid the darkness of men’s hearts. No one ever sung of peace.  
He had travelled the world, seen many lands, and the ones that gave him the chills the worst were the ones… at _peace._ And when he came back to his hometown of Slastjol he saw the very same taking root. Strange religions and outlandish cults. People were growing restless in the town. A blacksmith who no longer makes weapons has little to do but make horseshoes and fix tools. With his spare time he starts a cult based upon the twisted gods of the Five Islanders. A seamstress with little to do but repair clothing and make clothes for children turns to perverted interests to keep her boredom at bay.  
Haedri himself had spare time when he returned. In his own, he made short work of the blacksmith to set an example.  
That was months ago, when he had roused his clan from their peaceful coma, trained the warriors again and forged new weapons based on the forging techniques he had learnt in far off lands.  
By then his father was old and blind, having sat on his ass for more than a decade but was unwilling to rouse the people with Haedri, let alone rouse himself. Haedri had made his father clanlord all those years ago as a child, by poisoning his grandfather.    
He could just as easily make himself the head of Slastjol.   
He had thought, as a child, that when his father was freed of his grandfather’s lunacy, that Doryk would redeem the clan and bring it back to its former glory. But instead, he had done his duty by giving his oath to Haelmar and then returned home to sink into his chair, almost as if he were taking on the very same role as his grandfather; mind and soul.  
Haedri had left as soon as he was old enough, left to see the world, to fight and to get his own honour and legacy since his father would not for the clan. And when he returned to find that the people of Acra had been complacent for years, seeing cities full of riches unplundered and disputes settled with money rather than weapons, he knew that like his father, Acra was growing fat.  
He planned to shed it a few pounds.  
That was why he was back in Vahlen, walking up the Terrace of Thunder with not just six men, but hundreds, and instead of a busy market before him, it was a rout. The soldiers of the city were idle and in poor form when his own had struck. He had camped outside the night before, but apparently that no longer posed as a warning for imminent attack. No one had notified this god hero. He did not even come out to meet him when he demanded single combat. So he stormed the massive, solid walls, destroyed their towers, burned their buildings and took their gold. He took no prisoners, they let everyone flee. That was the way of Acra, the old way. If people chose to keep their lives and discard their honour, then let them keep what little they had.  
When they had come to the slave market, the bolder slaves joined them, bringing the fight to their masters, and before they had even opened the gates the men had fled the walls, running to the Grand Hjem palace.   
Haedri was merely striding. He didn’t need to catch them. He had only one thing in mind; he was going to say his oath to Haelmar the god hero, but it was going to be Haelmar who knelt. He knew the immortal would not be easy to defeat. He had fought a Trueborn before, and still wore its fur on his back as he strode along the terrace; the thick black and white fur of the beast who had tried to end his life in a port on the eastern continent. He had many scars from that fight and imagined that he would have a few more this time, but it was his duty to his people and if anything a scar was a good conversation starter, or ender.  
As a child, he had carried a toy sword through this city and even his father’s guards had kept their weapons at their belts. Now his men ran through Vahlen, sword, axe and hammer in hand. In his own hands were the two hammers of his family, the very ones his father had used and his father before him. They were dusty and the handles were no longer sturdy by the time Haedri found them in his father’s home but now they were reborn; polished and reinforced. The one in his left hand was Joro and in his right was Edur. They were already weapons of legend but with any luck they were going to be part of a few more.   
The men were promised a battle that would be a grand tale that all children would beg their father’s to tell again and again, however the ‘battle’ had been more a round of intimidation which sent the garrison of Vahlen packing. He didn’t even imagine any of his men had even fallen.   
That caused an ominous thought crossed his mind.  
His men might have slayed a hundred of the Vahlen soldiers, but could it be that this was actually all planned and that there was something waiting for all of them at the palace, not just for Haedri. He knew there would be the own elite soldiers of Haelmar’s guard and taskforce, the Trust, to meet with, but he hardly imagined them to be in any great number.  
Most of Haedri’s host had entered the city and they were more than four thousand in number. Soldiers from all over Acra; from Forkjol to Sorbyen, all had sent men to his cause while keeping enough in case of retaliation from loyalists. Whatever was ahead he did not imagine it could lay waste to all of his men.  
How many rebels before him had thought the same thing?  
The son of the clanlord of Fellhjem, Sebak, must have heard his thoughts. “I know I shouldn’t be sayin’ this, but this all seems too easy. For the same cunning ‘god hero’ who killed both my great-grandfather and grandfather while they thought themselves untouchable, this seems too… careless.”  
“Yes, it does, doesn’t it?” The young man Sebak was broad in shoulder but narrow in mind, never forgetting what the god hero had done to his family and made sure no one else did either. But he was one of the first to answer the call to rebel and he was the first in every battle to exchange blows. Along with his own personal retinue of brothers who were mostly cousins.  
 Haedri glanced about the terrace as they approached the Grand Hjem, passing the statues of the god hero, all of them appearing huge as statues were wont to be. They were, however, lifesize.  
“Perhaps he has fled in anticipation?” proposed the old warrior, Dunken the Hard, “To see who would be the first to rise up so he could counter?”  
“No, that’s what someone who feared for their life would do, Trueborn do not fear as we do.” Haedri had found that out first hand.  
Sebak managed to take that as a slight on his part for some reason and said like a young boy would to his father when not allowed to hunt, “He should be fearful for his life, if he knew I was coming.”  
Haedri was going to retort to that but thought better of it, they were in a battle, not an alehouse, and it would not do take away the boy’s thunder.   
Still on that path of thought was Dunken, clearly using the hard head for which he was named, “That may be true, but a Trueborn who has been in a single body as long as him tends to grow fond of it and becomes less rash and more paranoid. I have heard such rumours as to his actions in the past years. I think we should halt and call council with the others.”  
They could do that, but it would cost them their momentum and bloodrush they had gained. His warriors were already charging up the hundred steps leading up to the massive doors of the palace. The entire army was no longer together and even the other clanlords were rushing forward to finish their enemy.   
“No, we can’t stop, it would take half a century to get everyone back together, and in the meantime whatever might be waiting for us will be able to better prepare, or even launch a counterattack. Men would grow tired waiting, their muscles would relax and joints would get stiff. We continue, to whatever end.”  
Haedri’s mind was set. It was set the moment he returned to his beloved country. Already he had completed what he had hoped, to bring back the spirit of Acra, through battle and valour. All that remained was to finish what he had begun. So he went on with his men, marching towards the Grand Hjem, which looked somewhat less impressive amidst the rubble.  
They had come up to the pools with the calm waters that were a stark contrast to the turmoil about them. One even had a rock from one of his catapults submerged within; the pavement around the edge of the water was cracked from the force of the impact. Blood was blossoming in the water from underneath the rock where someone had the unfortunate luck to be directly beneath the plummeting piece of masonry.   
For some reason, that made Haedri stop.  
“How is that someone managed to get crushed by this rock… in a pool during a battle?”  
“Haed? What do you mean?” Sebak, like most of the others with him, was confused, but Dunken caught on quickly and shouted, “Back, all of you!” That was before the air suddenly filled with droplets of water.  
From the pools leapt hidden warriors scantly garbed in essential bits of leather armour wielding slim, wicked looking blades strapped to bracers upon their forearms. Within the first split second of them emerging Haedri was already moving to lock into combat with one that happened to be looking straight at him. And just as well, because that warrior had a tube in his mouth with a dart just waiting to bury itself into Haedri’s neck. That outcome was avoided with the unification of the man’s head and Edur.   
Thus far in Haedri’s life, he had met no one faster than he was to strike, but he knew old age was just around the corner. Time’s ominous tendrils waiting to pull him down, however right now time was measured in split seconds rather than years.  
As his former foe returned to the depths, Haedri was already whirling about to find another, and saw that the rest of his group, and his men at large, were not fairing so well. While the clanlord of Slastjol had outmatched his adversary, the other men were not so quick, with many writhing on the stone with darts in them or others at the mercy of their blades.  
Only the Trust could have such prowess and while Haedri felt himself capable of taking on such warriors he was not so sure about the rest of his army. He needed to do something. Already he could see the courage of the men around him failing. Weapons were being dropped in favour of a speedy escape which only made for an easy kill.  
Haedri spun his hammers around with a flick of his wrist and sprung into action.   
Immediately before him Dunken was on the ground struggling to prevent one of the ambushers from plunging a hidden blade into his neck and while the old man was strong it appeared the attacker was going to win. Swinging his arm back, Haedri brought Edur in an upward stroke straight into the ribs with a satisfying _crack_ and _crunch_ that left the warrior of the Trust on his back making the following downward strike onto the man’s chest seem like a theatrical dance.  
Adding himself to the troupe, Dunken was already on his feet with his massive battleaxe finally off his back and in his hands. Without hesitation the still great fighter lowered his stance as he swung it into another assailant who had just felled one of the many but dear cousins of Sebak. The attackers from the water were wearing little underneath their dark clothing so it took little effort beyond the swing for Dunken to cut the man in two.   
In the meantime, Haedri continued his dark dance with Joro and Edur playing on the drums of men’s lives. Grim thoughts.  
Haedri used the head Joro to spin a warrior of the Trust around to face him before jabbing him three times in the face within a second with Edur. He kicked the lifeless body to the floor and launched himself to the next fight, quite literally. As he slammed his weight into the side of another warrior he brought Joro down across his body to impact with the man’s chest so by the time the clanlord of Slastjol was standing on the ground again the other was not standing at all.  
His blood was raging through him but his breath was controlled. His lungs were in harmony with his actions, even in the heat of all the action about him. It was in the eastern lands he had learned the value of one’s body, of the inner strength as well as the outer. If everything is together, then more power can be achieved. Before he had arrived at the temple a ruin of a man, he had been a reckless and foolhardy fighter. In retrospect, he could hardly believe he had survived as long as he did.  
The clash was becoming more of a battle with the once fleeing guard of Vahlen returning in force and in military formation while his own forces were scattered and starting to feel somewhat trapped. Haedri could feel the jaws of impending doom closing on their fates and if he didn’t do something soon he and all those who followed him would find themselves being written down as another failed rebellion.  
Other clans had thought they were mighty enough, righteous enough or were just simply stupid enough to try and seize power from the god hero but it took a lot to depose such a ruler. Not only did it take military might, but the backing of the people, for the god hero himself was a divine ruler who according to legend was the son of Haal, the great power responsible for making the realm of Acra. Haelmar had apparently saved it countless times from all those that had threatened it, all in the name of Haal who had sent him. The common man believed that without Haelmar Acra would fall into ruin as their divine guidance and protection was lost.  
What this rebellion had that the others lacked was a true reason. Never had Acra become as slothful and petty a country as it was now and it was only with the rousing call to arms from Slastjol that everyone realized it, and saw that Haelmar the god hero was doing nothing to retain the honourbound and glorious ways of Acra of old. The people felt abandoned; as if the god hero wasn’t even there.  
Some part of Haedri hoped just that.  
He may have killed the like of Haelmar before, but the god hero was… a god hero, etched into Haedri’s childhood as a being of legendary heroics and unmatched might, even more than any immortal That would not stop him from facing him, it was his destiny, he knew it. Still, it caused the smallest grain of doubt to take in his heart.  
Pushing forward towards the palace, he knocked aside the enemy wherever he or she stood. It disturbed him to see amongst the Trust both men and women, it was as if he were back on his travels in distant lands where women were just as if not more dangerous than the men. However, he did not hesitate. He only hesitated once in his life and lived to learn the lesson.   
Never hesitate.   
Never let fear control your actions.  
A burly axeman from Horfjol to Haedri’s right was swinging violently at a lithe warrior of the Trust, roaring a deafening battlecry, however the warrior, as thin as he was, bashed aside the axe from the man’s hands. With the big man’s chest exposed the warrior elegantly slipped the long blades from her bracers into the man’s chest and threw him aside as if he were a toy, lifting him from the ground and sending him at least ten feet into the midst of the fighting.   
The warrior then faced Haedri. He saw that he was a she, however that one moment of staring at her bosom, as tied down as it was, cost him the air in his lungs as she kicked it out of him. Hardly a fair trade.  
Through the air and into the water he flew and when he went under with all the breath already missing from his lungs and his mouth opened only to receive water he almost panicked. Every man has a beast lurking within him, it can be as fierce as a wolf but as frightened as a doe. A man has to control it lest he be lost. Haedri fought with all his will to keep himself from flailing his arms and gasping for air which would just be water. The beast would not win today.  
The first thing that he realized as soon as he became calm was that the pool was in fact quite shallow. The second thing he realized as he emerged from the water and sucked in some precious air was that this female warrior was one of the Trueborn taken by Haelmar. This was anticipated, however he thought that the Trueborn would have been kept around Haelmar’s person rather than put amongst the regular soldiers.   
How many Trueborn did Haelmar have? Reports had said at least five or more than a dozen, no one was sure, and they could be anywhere in the fighting carving up his mortal men like hanging hams.   
Time for thinking in the water was done, he had stood there only a second in contemplation but already that was too long. The Trueborn femme fatale was already laying waste to the men around him and he could see a few already trying to escape her. Soon the fear would spread and so would his army. They would spread to the far corners of Acra and he would be killed as a rebel and his people who first joined his cause would be destroyed.  
The clothes he wore now became more of a burden than anything thanks to the water that soaked them; but he did not let that slow him as he ran from the pool towards the woman who had six bodies about her and a screaming one beneath her foot. Thanks to that man’s final struggles Haedri was able to land Edur with all his might upon the back of her shaved skull that sent her to the ground.   
Where a regular man’s head would be in ruins, her own remained intact; however a soft but almost sickening crack signalled that her skull was not entirely in one piece.   
Before she could summon her wits Haedri bashed on her head again with Joro then with Edur, then Joro and he kept doing so until finally he could be assured that she would not rise, not even an immortal such as her. They were not so immortal as to escape death completely, but already she would be alive again somewhere else and he might even have to fight her again if she chose revenge.   
The men around him were cheering, lifting up her corpse and spitting on it. It was just what was needed, but he could see the ordered ranks of the Vahlen guard were closing in around them, however, along the palace’s east face the ranks were not so deep and the men not so sure of themselves.   
That was where they would break through.   
For now, the Trust about them were dead. Only two of them had been Trueborn, and young ones at that. Perhaps the remaining were with their god hero. Perhaps he was indeed as scared as Dunken had proposed. And why not? Haedri the Lost had returned to Slastjol, claimed his inheritance with might and right and brought the greatest clans of Acra to the gates of Vahlen. Even a Trueborn had to be scared of that.  
Sebak and Dunken still remained alive as well as seven of Sebak’s cousins and Dunken’s son Harum, other representatives of the other clans were also nearby. When the body of the immortal he had defeated was left on the ground he stood upon it, lifted Joro and Edur above his head and roared to his men, “Where is this god hero? We have broken his walls, broken his city, even broken his Trust!” The men roared back in laughter, puffed up with the thrill of battle. Haedri continued, “I say, we haven’t broken enough! Let’s break his palace, his rule and even his godly neck!”   
  
  
  



End file.
